, a media outlet in the western city of Aktau, also reports long lines for bank machines. This is the daily limit imposed on those who can find a working ATM: The National Bank suspended commercial bank services on January 6 some fear they will not be available again until the state of emergency is lifted. Nurserik Zholbarys, a resident of Nur-Sultan, told Eurasianet that he stood over 30 minutes in a line to withdraw 10,000 tenge ($23) from a SberBank ATM machine in Nur-Sultan’s fashionable Esyl district. By the end of the week, long lines were forming at ATM machines in Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Aktau as residents sought cash to procure staples. These were often rendered useless by the outage because payment terminals depend on internet connections. Many Kazakhs do their daily shopping with debit cards. Even government websites have been forced offline. Telephone connections come and go, though data and cellular connections appear to be better in western Kazakhstan, which has been spared the violence. Yet even there, several customers of the Russia-owned Beeline mobile service reported they could get online at times, and many sites are blocked. The worst hit city is Almaty, epicenter of a violent government crackdown that has left dozens dead. KazakhTelecom, the state-owned telecommunication giant, began throttling access on January 4 amid nationwide protests that began over fuel prices and quickly swept a nation with longstanding grievances about inequality and corruption. Without an internet connection – essential there, too, for modern services, including paying for goods – many were also beginning to run out of food.Īround 95 percent of internet users in Kazakhstan have been unable for the most part to get online since January 5, according to NetBlocks, a data provider. Kazakhs woke on January 8 to find themselves, for the fourth straight day, cut off from the world. A supermarket in Nur-Sultan on January 7 (KZ.media/Telegram)
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